Author: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

–Has “Pro-life” become “Pro-death”?

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

===================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Which is more important to you: The living or the dead?

The answer is not so obvious as some might think.

Recently, the right-wing Washington Times published an article titled: “New Hampshire defunds Planned Parenthood facilities”

The New Hampshire vote, coming over the objections of Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, comes as the latest example of the backlash against Planned Parenthood following the release of five undercover videos raising alarm over the organization’s involvement in the trade of fetal organs from abortions.

The Republican-controlled New Hampshire Executive Council denied state funding by turning down a $639,000 contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.

The executive council’s decision came after Ms. Hassan refused calls to look into the group’s practices regarding fetal tissue.

The governor has said there is no evidence of illegality at the state clinics, which reportedly do not handle fetal tissue donations, adding, “We do not launch investigations in the state of New Hampshire on rumor.”

The nationwide discussion about Planned Parenthood has to do with a video (I’ve not seen it) that purports to show a negotiation over cadaver parts.

The readers of the Washington post were outraged. Here are representative examples of their comments:

“Women will find other clinics and facilities that don’t rip babies apart for lucre. They’ll be fine. Planned Death will suffer. That’s a good thing.”

“This may be the way around this Democratic Party supported slaughtering of the innocent, states one by one defunding them. Redirect those funds to health clinics that are not in the business of dissecting babies and money laundering for the Democratic Party.”

“The original undercover videos of PP going back over a year, revealed these murderers admitting they can easily finance their own black market organ factory without forced participation by unsuspecting taxpayers.”

“Why is it so important to kill babies up to birth?”

As you can see, there is a misleading overlap between abortion and vivisection. Logically, you can be opposed to the former while still understanding the need for the latter.

Some consider abortion to be “murder,” and virtually everyone is opposed to murder. But doctors and researchers have been using cadavers for more than a century — for research and practice — and seldom are these good people labeled, “murderers.”

Three facts:
–It is far better for a doctor to practice and to learn on a cadaver than on a live patient.
–Surgical researchers have no satisfactory alternatives to cadavers.
–Without cadavers, medicine still would be in the dark ages.

Cadavers have been the basis for countless medical discoveries, that have saved and extended the lives of millions — including millions of babies.

In order to learn from a cadaver, the doctor or researcher must dissect it (Medical research is not for the squeamish).

A doctor or a researcher is willing to pay for body parts, not because he is an insane “Freddy Krueger ” monster, but because he is trying to learn and to save current and future lives.

The U.S. Supreme Court has legalized certain abortions. That being the case, I submitted a question to the Washington Times readers. It was a very simple but important question, that had not been addressed:

“Abortion is legal. For months or years it will remain legal. So, for months or years, there will be many thousands of legal abortions. Additionally, there will be many thousands of natural abortions and still-borns.

“What do you suggest doing with all those dead fetuses?”

Mostly, there were no answers, but the few answers that were given, resembled these:

“They’re not ‘fetuses,’ they’re children.”

“Murder children and then use their body parts to save other “children,” a ruse liberals have been playing on an unsuspecting public in lock step with their godless messiah, Margaret Sanger.”

“The Liberal war on Children.”

“Liberals such as yourself, are devoid of ANY moral compass, when you design laws that encourage a woman to murder her child, and then slaughter that baby when it is born ALIVE for profit without her knowledge.”

The back and forth, conflating abortion with vivisection of cadavers, repeatedly avoided the question, leading me to write:

Before you set your hair on fire with uber-religious holiness, let me remind you of several facts:

1. The vast (and I mean VAST) majority of abortions are requested by pregnant women, who are thinking neither liberal nor conservative, but rather have a variety of reasons for not giving birth to a baby.

The nation agrees with them re. abortion, as does the Supreme Court. So if you want to argue the merits of abortion, don’t come to me. The law is settled, and if you disagree, try to change the law.

2. Until the law is changed (and surely after), there will be many thousands of aborted fetuses every year, in America. Some will be aborted by doctors, some will be aborted by non-doctors, and many will be aborted by nature in the form of still-borns and incomplete pregnancies.

3. My question then — the question I repeatedly have asked and never have had answered is: “What do you suggest doing with all those thousands upon many thousands of legally aborted fetuses” (or if you prefer, “unborn children.”)?

Why do you refuse to answer?

Then, after being cursed as a heartless, soulless liberal who favors killing children, I wrote:

I merely asked a simple question, which you studiously have avoided answering: “What do you suggest doing with all those thousands of legally aborted fetuses?”

Instead, you avoid the question by going into long-winded, hyper-dramatic arguments against abortion and liberals. But, you’re preaching to yourself, for I am not arguing in favor of abortion or liberals.

Let’s say that abortion and liberals are the worst things ever created and SCOTUS was completely wrong, as are the majority of Americans, all of whom will be punished in the non-existent afterlife.

Now. Today. Dead fetuses exist. What should be done with them?

Garbage or research? Choose.

Of course, the insults continued, and of course, there were no answers. Trying to get past the emotion, especially the religious emotion, that prevents rational discourse, I suppose one might make the case that selling body parts could lead to murder and abortion.

As for murder, I’m not aware of many murders that have taken place in order to obtain and sell cadavers. Perhaps it has happened in the past, but the incidence today must be vanishingly rare.

And as for Planned Parenthood having a profit motive that leads to abortion, I don’t understand how that would work. Planned Parenthood itself does not do abortions. So how would the profit motive lead to more abortions?

     Planned Parenthood: “We need to sell more baby cadavers.”
     Doctor: “O.K., I’ll do some unnecessary abortions.”

     Doctor: “I could use your baby for experimentation.”
     Mother: “O.K., in that case, I’ll have an unnecessary abortion.”

Perhaps that too has happened. Doubtful, but if so, surely it too must be quite rare.

So where does that leave us? The notion that somehow Planned Parenthood increases the number of abortions so they can make a profit, defies imagination.

But what doesn’t defy imagination is the absolute fact that medical research has saved and extended millions, perhaps billions, of lives.

Unfortunately, though we can point to lives saved by research, it is near impossible to point to lives lost because of lack of research.

How many people did President Bush kill or maim, and how many lives were shortened and will be shortened, because of his rulings against stem cell research?

No one knows.

But we do know that if medical research benefits billions, the lack of medical research must harm billions.

I won’t explore the motives of those who are more concerned about the fate of already dead fetuses than about the fate of living children and children yet to be born.

At best, these “pro-life” (actually, “pro-dead”) advocates are misguided and have the wrong priorities. At worst they are evil.

That is my opinion.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–The best article yet re. the Presidential race

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

===================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

It’s early, and so far the lead challengers are Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. That will change, especially on the Republican side, but here is the best article yet, about these three hopefuls.

I didn’t write it. I wish I had. Anis Shivani did.

I’ll give you a few choice paragraphs, but you should read entire article: Fascist Trump, Neoliberal Hillary, and Progressive Bernie: Three Contrasting Performance Styles

Here are a few of Mr. Shivani’s comments about Donald Trump:

Trump’s entire spiel is centered around how they–the immigrants, foreign countries like China and Mexico–have screwed us out of the wealth and prosperity we deserve, and how he, the duly elected strongman will outwit and outmuscle these wily powers.

Trump is a continuous stream-of-consciousness articulator of all the ignorant resentments–against uppity women and gays and African Americans and Hispanics and Asians, against Germany and Japan and Korea whom we still “protect” at great cost without getting anything in return, against Middle Eastern countries whom we strengthen and support at the cost of our only ally Israel.

Trump’s spiel is a compilation of every uninformed, simplistic, and delusional component of the conspiratorial narrative of grievance held by “real” Americans against those who are said to have falsely appropriated the label “American” for themselves.

Trump, like all the ignorant demagogues preceding him, claims that he will clean up this mess and separate the true Americans from the phonies.

For Trump, as for all his fascist predecessors, it is democracy itself which gets in the way of achieving greatness, performing those heroic deeds, for which the tired, weakened, aggrieved nation of true patriots yearns.

It is democracy itself which must be circumvented and sidelined. Except in the case of Trump, it is not Middle Eastern domination or the end to terror worldwide that he’s after, but simply negotiating better deals with China and Mexico.

Consider the originator of fascism, Mussolini, and notice the remarkable similarities between his and Trump’s performances: the same supercilious mockery of democrats, journalists, liberals, human rights campaigners, do-gooders; the same puerile postures and gestures, hard to imagine on a national stage except that it is actually happening; the same denial of past history and present circumstances in favor of creating a brand-new reality in accordance with the wishes of the adoring masses; the same preening self-admiration as the hero who alone embodies the wishes of the outwitted, outmaneuvered, outgunned people and will lead them to salvation; the same identification of nation with leader, until Mussolini (or Trump) becomes the nation, until the nation is unimaginable without him as its singular reincarnation.

In short, Trump is a nascent fascist, and the people who cheer for him are the same people who cheered for Hitler and Mussolini — the haters, the bigots, the morally depraved and mentally weak, the blamers and finger pointers, the useless additions to a raving crowd — people who want to believe that making America great requires, in some unexplained way, ripping 11 million men, women and children from their homes and shipping them out of the country.

And now a few of Mr. Shivani’s comments about Hillary Clinton:

Hillary wants to continue the necessary segregation between real and fake Americans as assiduously as Trump–Hillary wants to give a chance at a better school, a bigger home, an entrepreneurial venture, a path forward in the professional world.

Except that Hillary is not actually going to do a single thing for them; as she has explained in campaign speeches, these are the (righteous) folks who “fought their way back” on their own and pulled themselves up by the bootstraps during the economic crisis.

They’re not the ones who needed to be bailed out from unsustainable mortgage or student loan debt–Bernie’s people–they are the ones who made it. Every one of the people in her (introductory campaign) commercial smacks of liberal virtue, having paid their dues and followed every little rule on the path to success.

(She uses) the same empty rhetoric about “fighting” for the middle-class and wanting to be the president of “all” Americans, not just “the few.” She even wants to work across the aisle to keep us “safe” from terror, that’s one of her four fights; and there’s even “reinventing government.”

She who, along with her husband, jettisoned core Democratic principles such as single-payer health care, gave in to right-wing discourse on every single social policy, and gutted the New Deal and Great Society consensus on education, taxes, budgets, welfare, immigration, telecommunications, crime, banking, and trade, now wants to “fight” on behalf of the very people whose decimation is associated with Clintonism even more than with Reaganism.

And she offers not a single policy prescription of substance, besides platitudes about rewarding hard work and playing by the rules (just as her husband did).

Had she not left such a complete vacuum of policy and failed to address the real economic misery out there, there would have been no opening for Trump or other extremists.

In short, Clinton is a go-along, do-nothing, riding on her name, and with no ideas for helping those who need help or for growing the economy or for strengthening America or for doing anything else positive you can think of.

Her message: “If you work hard or marry well (for instance, marry a President), you will do fine. But if you are poor, it’s because you are lazy, so don’t ask me to help you, because helping you only will make you lazier.”

And finally, a few of Mr. Shivani’s comments about Bernie Sanders:

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, offers specific policies–not just rhetoric–on each and every economic and social crisis that Hillary mentions and then sidelines in fuzzy words.

Before Clintonism demolished core Democratic principles, as in the endorsement of privatized health care, rather than the single-payer Medicare-type health care Bernie advocates, all of Bernie’s prescriptions used to be mainstream liberal aspirations.

He wants free higher education (which more or less used to be the case anyway for most students before rapid tuition inflation put paid to that in the last generation or two), a $15 minimum wage (already that figure is becoming outdated), and Medicare for all.

While I regret the element of economic nationalism that has crept into progressive thinking and feel sorry about the loss of faith in trade and globalization and openness in favor of a hunkered-down protectionism, this is something that infects the entire left, and is a legacy of the flawed inception of globalization in the Clinton years.

The only way to find our way back is to make ours a more humane society, with exactly the kind of redistribution downward that Bernie is talking about, so that a freer, more open, more trusting world can once again emerge on the horizon.

In that sense, I have total empathy with Bernie and his rhetoric (compared with) the perverted economic nationalism of Trump, rooted in white supremacy and a xenophobic victimization that has no basis in reality given our unparalleled national wealth and resources.

So there we have it, the style we need and deserve (Bernie’s, offering not just hollow words that have had all the meaning rubbed out of them after a generation of Clinton-Bush-Obama neoliberalism, but real solutions for real problems), versus Trump’s inverted populism, or fascism if you like to use that language (imagine every sane proposal offered by Bernie turned on its head, so it becomes a privatized, ruthless, brutal policy benefiting the rich even more than they already do, because after all we can all aspire to become rich like Trump).

O.K., it’s a commercial for Bernie Sanders, but a commercial with a great deal of fundamental truth: Donald Trump IS a rich fascist, whose empathy is for people like him, the rich, and who sneers at the poor and middle class, all of whom are “losers.”

Hillary Clinton IS a phony, who admires those who have “made it,” but will do absolutely nothing for those who need the government’s helping hand, because really, how much will they pay her for speeches?

Bernie Sanders IS a liberal who will lift the bottom and middle, and close the Gap between the rich and the rest.

I always felt Joe Biden’s entry into the race was imminent once Hillary persisted in her vacuous campaign–running on a platform of absolutely nothing substantive.

The establishment narrative has it that Biden is the Democratic party’s insurance policy in case Hillary implodes due to scandal.

But I rather think that Hillary desperately wants Biden in the race–just as the Clintons injected Wesley Clark as the attack dog in the 2004 campaign to scramble the equation and put Howard Dean on the defensive and eventually doom him–because she has no capacity to go one-on-one in debates against Bernie.

I suspect Trump will see his numbers decline, as people grow tired of the same old entertainment, and in a fit of desperation, Trump either will join the Republicans or create his own political party, which will be called “TRUMP” in great big letters.

I don’t know who the Republicans will nominate — the entire crop is lame — but my WAG (Wild Ass Guess) is Marco Rubio, who has as much qualification to be President as I have to be Pope — but he’s a Latino, and if you add Latinos to bigots and the selfish religious (religion and its love of God now having been turned on its head to personify mean, cruel selfishness and hatred), you can get quite a few votes.

I suspect Clinton will receive the Democratic nomination from the Powers That Be, because she is a charter member of the club, not for any plans, ideas, goals or leadership, as she has none.

Personally, I wish Elizabeth Warren were running, but caring about the poor, the unempowered and the needy is not stylish in today’s “me-first, me-last, me-only” environment.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–It’s all about laws. Isn’t it?

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

===================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

“It’s about laws. It’s about borders. If we don’t have a border, we don’t have a country. So, I’d get them out. And if they were really outstanding — because some of these people have been here for a long period of time. I’d let them back legally, they have to come through a legal system, and I’d make that system much faster, much greater. When someone’s terrific, we want them back here.”
Donald Trump, candidate for President of the United States

If it really were “about laws,” we simply could change the laws.

We wouldn’t need to kick down doors and arrest people, and ship them out like cattle. We wouldn’t need to herd them back again, with Donald Trump making life or death decisions about who’s good enough to re-enter, meanwhile destroying their lives for no purpose.

So, it really isn’t about laws.

And it’s not about economics, either. Deporting these people, and then re-importing them, would cost many hundreds of billions of dollars. Think of the same number of dollars spent for jobs and schools and for improvements in our lives.

And it’s not about crime; undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are citizens.

So what is it about? It’s about fear and bigotry and phony “reasons” invented by hate mongers.

We all are immigrants and children of immigrants, except we arbitrarily made the laws more welcoming, back then.

You realize, Mr. Trump, that you, your family and the rest of the white and black people are on my land illegally. So please leave now, Mr. Trump, and if we decide you are “terrific” and “really outstanding,” we’ll let you back in.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Donald Trump, candidate for President of the United States

By way of reminder, here are some of the rapists, drug dealers and criminals:

Why in America, do children need to hold up signs reading, “WE ARE HUMAN”?

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

===================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
——————————————————————————————————————————————

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Recessions come after the blue line drops below zero.

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY

–How to be stupid, deny reality — and be right

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
•Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
•Any monetarily NON-sovereign government — be it city, county, state or nation — that runs an ongoing trade deficit, eventually will run out of money.
•The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes. .
•Liberals think the purpose of government is to protect the poor and powerless from the rich and powerful. Conservatives think the purpose of government is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless.
•The single most important problem in economics is the Gap between rich and poor.
•Austerity is the government’s method for widening the Gap between rich and poor.
•Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
•Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the Gap between the rich and the rest..

===================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

We all do it on occasion — deny reality that is. I should know. I have been a Chicago Cubs fan my entire life. The Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908, an astounding 107 years of failure. Yet still I hope . . .

That bit of reality denial is harmless, sometimes even enjoyable.

But some reality denial not only is harmful, but just plain stupid. Here are some examples:

States with tough gun laws have fewer shooting deaths: study

The harder states make it to get guns — like New York — the fewer people die because of them, a new analysis of firearm restrictions shows.

New York State, with its relatively strict laws — restrictions that are even tougher in the five boroughs — had 4.2 gun deaths per capita in 2013, the third-fewest number of gun-related deaths nationwide, according to the National Journal’s study released Monday.

It examined gun-related deaths of all types — from murders to suicides and accidental shootings — in the year 2013 and found “while it’s certainly true that a number of factors contribute to the high rates of gun violence in the U.S., a comparison of state laws versus rates of shooting deaths does show a correlation.”

Some of National Journal’s findings aligned with research conducted by the nonprofit group Everytown for Gun Safety, which shows states with background checks have fewer gun-related domestic violence murders, homicides of law enforcement officials and suicides.

Can you imagine that? States with background checks have fewer gun deaths. And this bit of obvious reality is denied by the right.

Alan Gottlieb of the Washington State-based Second Amendment Foundation said law-abiding gun owners are the ones who feel targeted by — and yet obey — stronger regulations, not crooks. “Criminals don’t obey laws. That’s why they’re known as criminals,” he said.

The brilliant Mr. Gottlieb just provided his rationale for not having any laws of any kind.

After all, by definition a law-abiding person obeys laws, and a criminal doesn’t. So why have laws?

Huh?

He and the Republicans deny reality, and no one can deny they are right — extreme right.

Here’s more:

Climate Change: Has “stupid” become a GOP brand?

Willful stupidity: Of its most dangerous manifestations is climate change denialism–the refusal to accept that rising global temperatures caused by emissions of greenhouse gases are a growing threat to human well-being and national security.

“Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening” (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2014 ).

Scientists world-wide (express concerns) about such disturbing facts as rising global temperature and increasing frequency of extreme weather. Accelerated melting of glaciers, and of sea ice and ice sheets in polar regions are causing sea levels to rise. The World Bank projects that in ten years “at least 65 percent of city dwellers on each continent” will reside in vulnerable low-elevation coastal zones.

According to the DOD, “In places like the Hampton Roads region in Virginia, which houses the largest concentration of US military sites in the world, we see recurrent flooding today, and we are beginning work to address a projected sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years.”

On the other side, a Republican peanut gallery tries to drown out all these warnings with a chorus of “I’m not a scientist, but. . . .”

According to the Center for American Progress , “53 percent of House Republicans and 72 percent of Senate Republicans deny the occurrence of human-caused climate change.”

The most prominent and ardent denier is Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), whom Republicans have elected the chair of the crucial Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

He regards human-caused global warming as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” On a very cold day in February this intellectual giant of the GOP caucus threw a snowball onto the Senate floor as a proof against global warming.

On Sen. Inhofe’s committee 10 of the 11 Republican members are deniers, as are 13 of 21 Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) shrugged off global warming with this deceit: “Each side has their scientists.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) answers questions about the climate with the same dodge.

In “The Madness of Miami Beach” (The Guardian , 3/10/15) Robin McKie describes the early stages of a catastrophe overtaking this famous resort city and threatening much of South Florida. During spring and autumn, tidal surges cause seawater to pour into the city’s storm drains and up onto the streets where it corrodes cars parked at ground level and flows into houses and stores. The city has budgeted $1.5 billion for flood control.

If a “sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years” occurs as projected by the DOD, the result will be disastrous for the entire Miami area. According to Philip Stoddard, mayor of South Miami, “Another foot of sea-level rise will be enough to bring salt water into our fresh water supplies and our sewage system. Those services will be lost when that happens.”

The admitted Republican non-scientists disagree with the scientists about climate change as it is happening before our eyes, and no one can deny they are right — extreme right.

The Republicans deny reality and the existence of horrific problems, and leave these problems for our grandchildren to suffer.

Here’s more:

Trump’s deportation idea similar to 1930s’ mass removals

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for the mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally as well as their American-born children bears similarities to a large-scale removal that many Mexican-American families faced 85 years ago.

Trump has provided few details on how his proposed deportation effort would be carried out. The conservative-leaning American Action Forum concluded in a report it would cost between $400 billion to $600 billion and take 20 years to remove an estimated 11.2 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

The large-scale deportation Trump envisions would be impractical to enact, due to the extent to which Mexican immigrants have integrated into U.S. society, said Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai.

U.S.-born children of immigrants have been automatically considered American citizens since the adoption of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment in 1868. A Supreme Court ruling in 1898 halted previous attempts to limit the birthright of Chinese-American citizens after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Visualize police kicking in doors and dragging terrified men, women and children from their homes. Visualize cattle cars filled with suffering people. Visualize a Soviet-style system of neighbor spying on, and reporting, neighbor. Visualize armed resistance, American vs. American. That is Trump-world.

And for what?

What do the data tell us about the criminal threat of immigrants?

A range of studies show there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, first-generation immigrants are predisposed to lower crime rates than native-born Americans.

Immigration and crime levels have had inverse trajectories since the 1990s: immigration has increased, while crime has decreased. Some experts say the influx of immigrants contributed to the decrease in crime rates, by increasing the denominator while not adding significantly to the numerator.

The Congressional Research Service found that the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants do not fit in the category that fits Trump’s description: aggravated felons, whose crimes include murder, drug trafficking or illegal trafficking of firearms.

CRS also found that non-citizens make up a smaller percentage of the inmate population in state prisons and jails, compared to their percentage to the total U.S. population.

“Immigrants in general — unauthorized immigrants in particular — are a self-selected group who generally come to the U.S. to work. And once they’re here, most of them want to keep their nose down and do their business, and they’re sensitive to the fact that they’re vulnerable,” said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

Trump can defend himself all he wants, but the facts just are not there.

Fact Checker “awarded” Trump the dubious honor of Four Pinocchios, for extreme lying and denial of reality. Yet Trump is leading the polls for Republican Presidential candidate.

In the above cases, as well as all the right wing’s lies about the “need” to cut social spending, you’ll find not only denial of human decency, but stupid denial of reality.

The deniers are right — extreme right.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here and here)
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)

The Ten Steps will add dollars to the economy, stimulate the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.
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10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
1. A growing economy requires a growing supply of dollars (GDP=Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports)
2. All deficit spending grows the supply of dollars
3. The limit to federal deficit spending is an inflation that cannot be cured with interest rate control.
4. The limit to non-federal deficit spending is the ability to borrow.

THE RECESSION CLOCK
Monetary Sovereignty

Monetary Sovereignty

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the growth lines rise. Increasing federal deficit growth (aka “stimulus”) is necessary for long-term economic growth.

#MONETARYSOVEREIGNTY